Here’s an opportunity to talk about the way in which you think poetry and the kind of attention that you’ve experienced in poems (reading them and writing them) as well as the care paid to language might be relevant to your own Christian practice. Parini shows how the practice of Christian meditation has influenced poetry, how might the reverse be true (the practice of poetry influence your Christian practice)?
This week we’re looking at poet’s talking to each other over centuries. What do you learn from listening in on these conversations? Have you found yourself responding to poets over the course of the semester with your own opinion that differs from them? Or have you responded with a resounding YES but with the desire to extend the comment or qualify it according to your experience?
In particular we are examining the Jubilate poems and the Fish poems. You may comment on the specifics of either of these or more generally on the nature of the poet-dialogue through time.
Notice the contrast between last week’s free verse and the villanelle. It would be interesting to read other poems by Dylan Thomas and Elizabeth Bishop, who wrote the Villanelle’s we are close reading this week. Especially in Bishop’s case, the voice of the villanelle and the voice of the free verse are remarkably similar. Bishop can chat and confide even in a villanelle! Robert Frost said “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and thought has found words.” The Villanelle, in particular, illustrates this. Though it is a killer to write. What do you think?
This week we are talking about free verse, in particular about Psalm 121, “Mother to Son,” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” In the case of each of these, which we’ve now discussed in class, the message is clear. What we still have to talk through is the form and the way in which the form and ideas work together. I’d also welcome comments about the psalmic form more generally. Langston Hughes was exposed to jazz and blues, it would be interesting to trace that influence in these poems. I’m not asking for expert opinion, just observation. For further reading see Hughes “The Weary Blues”.